


Keikaku B

by Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Anime, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Secret Samol 2017, a ship where everyone is emotionally repressed but also they cuddle sometimes, it's meta, moderately on my bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 04:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep/pseuds/Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep
Summary: “Ohhhhhhh, it’s an artsy thing where nothing happens...is it like Evangelion? I didn’t really get Evangelion, maybe we should watch that next.”“Mako, so many things happen in Evangelion.”Or: Mako and Orth watch the Hieron anime on the Kingdom Come's long journey to September





	Keikaku B

**Author's Note:**

> Chag sameach, Lulav [palmsmith](http://archiveofourown.org/users/palmsmith)! Your request for Orth watching the Hieron anime was a lot of fun to write! 
> 
> Notes: Takes place probably sometime during Animal Out of Context, so spoilers through there. Also contains spoilers for Winter in Hieron, sorry. 
> 
> Contains a reference to recreational drug use.

“Mako...” Orth’s voice filtering through the door exuded the same mildly threatening responsibility it always did. Maybe a little cranked up on the threatening these days.     
  
“Uh...it’s me, Larry,” Mako tried. He crossed his fingers.   
  
“Mako, I know it’s you in there. Why are you hiding in the bathroom?” Damn.    
  
“Whatever, there’s like seven bathrooms on this ship, it’s fine,” Mako scoffed. “Why are there so many bathrooms? I don’t remember this many bathrooms in that weird memory simulation thing, did Audy add them? AuDy doesn’t need to pee do they, why would they add more bathrooms? I’m not saying that this is Ibex’s fault--”    
  
The access panel began making menacing beeps.    
  
“Okay okay, I’m coming out.” He sighed, hopped down from his comfy crouch on top of the toilet tank, and fogged the door open. Or Larry, with a little orange spark of anxiety flaring in their shared Strat-o-vision, fogged open the door before he could. Whatever. He was a cool Stratus and then the door opened.    
  
Mako bounced on the heels of his wedge sneakers as he greeted Orth. “Just a little indigestion, Cass’s pasta yesterday was a little fishy. Fishier than usual, ha ha. Anyway, nice to see you, dude, let’s do this again in a week or so!” He tried to dart past Orth and down the hall to another bathroom or something.    
  
Orth clasped Mako’s shoulder very firmly with his large hand. He had his suit jacket off and his sleeves rolled up for some reason. Damn, he was strong though. And big. Honestly kind of hot for a old nerd, come to think of it. (Okay, Mako had been thinking of it at least a little ever since he saw young Orth in the memory thing. Could you blame him?) “Today we’re going to scrub the hallways together,” Orth declared. 

 

“What? Nah, it’s totally fine! Hallway is super clean.” Mako gestured with his free arm at a random spot on the floor to prove his point, then whipped his arm behind his back when he saw that it still had a weird burn on it from when he’d dropped one of Cass and Aria’s homemade bomb attempts. Not like scrubbing was going to fix that anyway. Where  _ was  _ Cass, they were basically like the other adult in charge, maybe they could get Mako out of doing Orth’s boring bullshit. Plus everyone was feeling super weird and Cass was pretty good at shoving down feelings. “Hey, where’s Cass?”

 

Orth squinted down at him. “Is this about the pasta thing?” He started marching Mako down the hall. 

 

“What pasta thing?” Crap, this was getting dangerous. God, he should be able to get out of this, he was supposed to have learned about Orth from the memory thingy--well, learned about Ibex, but mostly he just learned that Ibex was a jerk--”Dog!” Mako blurted. 

 

Orth made a growling noise, coincidentally kind of like--damnit, Ibex. 

 

“I mean...dawg, do you wanna watch some anime?” Right, right, Orth liked anime...which was that one he was super into? “I’ve been surfing the Mesh and that old one with the swords looks really good. We should watch it together, take a load off!” Mako gave an enthusiastic flail and accidentally kicked the wall. 

 

“The one with the swords...Revolutionary Girl Utena?” Orth seemed like he was actually thinking about it. 

 

“No?” Mako didn’t actually know if it was or not, but hey, if it kept Orth busy for even a little while.

 

“Not Sword Art Online?” Orth looked thunderous, and his grip tightened. 

 

“Nah, it’s like this EarthHome thing? Cass said it had some Apostolisian cultural appropriation shit going on...I mean, it’s whatever, we all live in a hell world anyway, no ethical consumption under whatever, you know?” Mako reassured him. “Who knows where, like, this came from, right?” He pointed at the smear of glittery pink liquid eyeliner he had been applying in the bathroom. 

 

“Wha--You’re talking about Hieron,” Orth sighed. Man, this never would have worked to distract him before, but hey, this was space, maybe the rules were different here. “The EarthHome dub is awful.” Orth shook his head definitively. “They translated the Hea--oh, that’s a spoiler--they translated so many things in the worst way possible, they didn’t release a whole season that was actually crucial to the plot…”

 

“Ahhhh, censoring it to fit their nefarious agenda, huh?” Mako nodded wisely up at Orth. “What’s the good one then, we gotta watch that.” 

 

“This fansub group called Maelgwyn’s Faithful--I’ll explain it later--did the first few seasons, you kind of have to patch fansubs together after that though…” Orth started propelling Mako toward the bridge, score. It was totally worth being pulled hard enough that his feet left the ground at some point. Huh, could Orth lift him with one arm? Maybe Aria could be on Orth’s other arm. And Cass could sit on his shoulders and AuDy could hold up all of them, AuDy was strong as hell. And Jacqui could take the picture, he guessed. 

 

“Here, take a seat while I find a torrent of the first season,” Orth muttered, shoving Mako into one of the shitty bucket chairs. 

 

“Uh, I’m gonna like...grab some pillows and blankets and make ourselves a nice anime watching blanket fort actually, okay?” Orth waved a hand from where he was hunched over a tablet, looking extremely like some ancient worn-down statue. Mako bounced back off to the bathroom where he had been stashing his bedding. He could just go hide somewhere again and hope Orth forgot about him, but...Orth might actually forget about him this time. Whatever. 

 

He scooped up a ton of pillows and blankets and scrambled back to the bridge, just in time to see Orth make a surprised noise. “The Kingdom Come still has the first three seasons of Hieron in the internal memory!” His wire-rimmed glasses had slipped down his nose in his excitement. “I thought for sure they wouldn’t still be here! I think--oh, it’s the AMV I was working on!” 

 

Mako began arranging the pillows into a decent nest. “Aw man, sweet. How come they kept your shit though, AuDy deleted all the memes I made the second I uploaded them, I’m gonna fog the shit out of ‘em--” Orth gave him this weird pinched look, so Mako shut up and draped the blankets. 

 

“Take a squat, man,” Mako said, patting the blanket nest when it was complete. “Watch an anime or two. Oh dude, I feel like we should have some weed or something, where’s the weed? Aria probably has a fancy bong, but I don’t think she actually has any weed...I’m still kind of scared of Jacqui...do Apostolisians smoke weed? Sokrates definitely seemed like they smoked weed, do you think Cass has any weed? Oh, they have  _ seaweed _ , ha!” 

 

Orth sat down very hard, sending a ripple through the blankets. “You can’t be high while you watch Hieron for the first time!” He looked very distressed.

 

“Why’s it called HIGH-ron then, huh? I’m kidding, roll the film,” Mako yelled. Orth still failed to suppress a smile as he tapped the screen, so Mako was definitely winning here.

\---

**Season 1, Episode 1: The Isle of Eventide**

 

“Dude, how long is this just going to be wide shots of them arguing on this boat?” 

 

“Mako, it’s been two minutes.” 

 

Onscreen, there were opposing close ups of the annoying tiny guy’s eyes, glowing briefly like a cat’s would, and then the old elf guy’s glasses doing the white flash thing in turn before the camera panned back, and they were small figures in front of a stormy sea and a tower entirely in shadow again.

 

“Uh-huh…” 

 

“...Fine, the first episode is just wide shots of them arguing on the boat.”

 

“Ohhhhhhh, it’s an artsy thing where nothing happens...is it like Evangelion? I didn’t really  _ get _ Evangelion, maybe we should watch that next.” 

 

“Mako, so many things happen in Evangelion.” 

\---

“Ehhh, that was alright I guess.” Mako flipped onto his stomach and propped his face on his folded arms. Even after watching the whole first episode, It felt like nothing happened, but that’s how watching most stuff felt to him anyway, and distracting Orth into not cleaning was the really important thing here. 

 

“It’s an accurate adaptation of the mangaka’s original vision! The dynamics of the characters, the interpersonal arguments in the shadow of something ancient and powerful.” Orth’s face was flushed, and he looked much younger. His ears hadn’t even glowed this much when he was being choked by Sister Rust. Anime greater than sign terrorists, Mako guessed. “And you haven’t even met my favorite character yet, he’s this really sweet tired priest who doesn’t show up until Season 3--”

 

“That pirate captain guy was cool, sucks that the sword lady killed him...Also, I still think they shoulda just ridden the big sword guy to shore. I mean, that’s what we did with AuDy once when this like, gang of like vampire CEO LARPers chased us through the sewers. Did you know that Counterweight has sewers?” Mako didn’t stop asking AuDy for piggyback rides for a week after that, not until they gave him one and then promptly dropped him in a dumpster. They would probably do it again if he brought it up. If they weren’t in a weird robot coma. 

 

“Hey, put on some more episodes. You can explain them to me.” Mako poked Orth in the shoulder. Distraction was the really important thing here.

\---

**Season 1, Episode 12: The Longest Day**

 

A shot of the sun gleaming brightly over the sea faded into a shot of a gold-embroidered sun on white cloth. The gleam of a blade tucked into the sash. 

 

“Oh, Hadrian’s got a fancy yukata on...holy shit it’s the festival episode!” Mako perked up. If he were a dog person, his ears would have probably twitched. He knew a dog person once, with floppy little dalmation ears. They had to leave Counterweight once they lost their job and all, it sucked. 

 

“Mako, do you only watch shoujo anime?” Orth had a shrewd look on his face. Mako didn’t like anyone looking shrewd at him. 

 

“Obviously.” He rolled his eyes. His right eyelid actually stuck to itself for a moment, maybe this new eyeliner wasn’t such a great idea. “Where else but magical girl anime would I get inspiration for all of my great looks?” Mako was only wearing a pair of cutoff jorts and a one-shoulder purple tank top today, but whatever, laundry totally sucked on the Kingdom Come. Maybe he should have done his laundry before going on this horrible month-long space road trip. 

 

The rest of the characters came onscreen, Hella in a plain blue robe that clearly had leggings underneath, Lem in a pearlescent silk robe and like five fanny packs, Throndir in a thigh-skimming floral print robe (with Kodiak wearing a matching bandana), and Fero in a...t-shirt? A fantasy t-shirt? 

 

Aria would probably look at the clothing symbolism if she were watching. She liked that kind of thing. But she was always holed up in her room with her not-girlfriend doing whatever now. Mako still hadn’t given her back the pleated green skirt that he’d borrowed a month ago. 

 

Back onscreen, they had already hit the montage part of the episode. Hella fed Kodiak out of the giant mound of snacks in her arms when no one was looking. Fero whispered to the goldfish at the fishing booth. Throndir downed every target at the air rifle booth and gave the giant stuffed wolf prize to a confused Hadrian. Lem was...mugged in an alley? Fought some muggers? 

 

Orth turned back from grinning crookedly at the montage and looked giddy  _ and  _ shrewd at Mako, which, bad. “It’s just that this isn’t a shoujo anime. I mean, mostly not.” 

 

The scene cut to blood spilling across a floor. 

 

Mako jumped.

 

“What are you doing on the floor?” came a voice from above him.

 

Mako jumped again.

 

It was Jacqui Green, standing over their blanket nest with her shiny hands on her hips, looking skeptical and also way too comfortable for someone on a strange spaceship with seven bathrooms where the pilot was in a goddamn coma. 

 

“I’m watching anime with my buddy Orth, and it’s a really good anime, and he’s also a really good buddy, and also also this is a really good blanket nest!” Mako yelled. Oops, overselling it probably, and also probably a bit too loud, but you had to assert dominance over your friends’ datemates somehow. 

 

“Mako’s right, it’s really good, it’s about this group of friends in a post-post-apocalyptic world who uncover the secrets of history and the gods…” Orth gave an awkward thumbs-up from where he had sunken down into the soft layers of their nest before pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Oh, ah, hello Ms. Green, what time is it?” 

 

“Twenty-three hundred hours. But it doesn’t matter, we’re in deep space transport,” Jacqui responded in her raspy voice. She stretched, and then squatted on her calves next to them. 

 

“Uh-huh, yeah, that’s sure a time of day,” Mako said. He may have blown a small raspberry. Why was she still here, shouldn’t she be with Aria? 

 

The scent of orchids and motor oil wafted past. “Hi Jacqui, hi...Mako and Orth!” Aria suddenly skidded into the bridge. She tucked her hair behind her ear with the robot hand, then untucked it. “What are you guys doing on the floor?” 

 

“We’re watching anime,” chorused Mako and Orth and also apparently Jacqui, what the fuck. “No we’re not,” Mako interrupted himself, frowning at Jacqui. Damn, he knew that he should have sprung for getting his teeth filed all pointy and scary instead of buying those limited edition light up sneakers so he could be intimidating instead of shiny.

 

“Okay, cool, we’ll join you guys then!” chirped Aria. She neatly tucked her legs under her and smoothed her skirt, snuggling in next to Mako. She hadn’t been this close to him in weeks. 

 

_ Why aren’t you sitting next to Jacqui _ , he mouthed at her, making sure to stick his tongue out at the mention of Jacqui. Orth was already restarting the episode, nice, they could all see everyone’s outfits again. 

 

Aria only shrugged at him, a gesture he felt more than saw. _ Space _ , she mouthed.

\---

**Season 1, Episode 28: An Open Mind**

 

“Wow.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They were all entranced by the glint of the fine gold chain that swayed like wheat in the wind between the gold rings in Samot’s nipples as he tilted Hadrian’s chin up and told him to keep an open mind. Well, Mako and Aria were entranced, Jacqui seemed entranced-disgusted, and Orth was probably crying about symbolism or something. 

 

“Mako we should get our nipples pierced,” whispered Aria. She tucked her head closer in to his shoulder. Her hair seemed less shiny, like an underfed cat. Mako had learned that one from an EarthHome documentary. He’d never seen an actual cat, like, only really rich people had and/or were actual cats. Anyway, they should all eat snacks more.

 

But pierced nipples didn’t sound bad, aside from the piercing part. “Yeah! I didn’t even get pierced nipples when the Snowtrak doctors poured weird metal into my chest, what a ripoff. I bought thirty-seven robots from them!” Mako grumbled.

 

“I’d finally forgotten about that, please don’t remind me.” 

 

Mako bolted upright and twisted around, burritoing himself in Aria’s fluffy pink blanket she had draped around them, but whatever, didn’t matter because-- “Cass!”

 

There they were, outlined by dim red light filtering through the doorway of the bridge. Even though they were habitually neat in their maxi skirt and sweater, they looked tired. Crap, were their scales flaking off? Mako should look up fish care or something. 

 

“Also, please don’t run off somewhere and get your nipples pierced. I can do it,” Cass said down at Mako and Aria. They rubbed their hand over their temples, the Rigalia absent. 

 

Mako crossed his arms over his chest. “You can...you can do it...with _a_ _gun_?” Mako squinted suspiciously at them.

 

“No!” Cass rubbed their temples harder. “With needles! I’m a doctor, we’ve been over this.” 

 

“Ooh, let’s do it!” Aria punched Mako’s arm. “We can get like, matching bell charms for the jewelry, it’ll be so cute!”

 

“You absolutely cannot get bells, we are criminals, we sneak places,” said Cass. 

 

Jacqui was smirking at Mako, which, whatever, just because she had metal arms didn’t mean that she got to be superior at him about being scared of stuff in his nipples. “Yeah, let’s do it after whatever this next mission is, it’ll be great!” 

 

“Sure,” Cass said in the absent voice that meant they had already filed it away in their brain under the box marked ‘After Mission.’ They walked over and perched at the edge of the blanket nest, making Mako slide toward them with their weight. The skin around the crook of their elbow felt cold. 

 

“We’re watching--” Mako started.

 

“Yeah, I know. The episode of Hieron where Hadrian fights the pala-din and gets visited by Samot.” 

 

This time Orth, apparently totally unpullable from his anime fugue state by nipple talk, twisted around abruptly, seriously disturbing the equilibrium of their nest. “You’ve watched Hieron!” 

 

Cass shrugged. “Oh yeah, Hieron crossover fics were weirdly popular in Buffy fandom for a while. It’s pretty good.” Man, Mako had to get Cass to show him some of their favorite fics. Bet he could figure out what kind of characters they were horny for. 

 

“Can you help me with my,” Orth dropped his voice, “Arrellyosha fanvid? I think I still have the clips on this hard drive, and I picked out a really great classical Mountain Goats song.” 

 

“Arrell sucks!” Cass gestured emphatically, dislodging Mako from where he leaned against their side. Boo. 

 

“He’s just trying to do what he thinks is best for the survival of Hieron, the book thing isn’t even a bad plan!” argued Orth, apparently very worked up about this. Mako couldn’t even remember which one was Arrell. Self-righteous sword guy was Hadrian, self-righteous elf guy was Fantasmo...whatever, Orth would definitely explain later if he asked. “Also, Alyosha loves him!” added Orth.

 

“He reminds me of Ibex, so he totally sucks. And he’s just mean to Alyosha!” 

 

The two of them fell into a...shipping argument? It was hard to tell when they both kept cutting each other off to avoid spoilers or whatever. Something about dog jokes, huh, Hieron had dog jokes too. Maybe that’s where Ibex had gotten it, that jerk. But Orth was looking weirdly defensive about this ship, which was weird when he had been looking so relaxed all day, in a worked-up-about-anime-way. 

 

It had been a long day. It had been a long few weeks, drifting through space. They were all tired. Mako was tired, even.

 

To cut them off, Mako, or maybe Larry, fogged Orth’s tablet so that the next episode would play. 

 

**Season 2, Episode 1: The City of First Light**

 

“Oh shit, this is a jam,” Aria said at the first notes of the theme song. Jacqui looked over fondly at her. Mako would allow it, just this once. He had gotten himself sandwiched too cozily between Cass and Aria to fight her. 

 

“Of course,” said Cass and Orth simultaneously. Cute. 

 

“Ayep,” agreed Mako, and yawned. Cass felt warmer now under his cheek. 

 

Convincing Orth to flop and watch anime for the day was a good idea after all. He knew it, his plans always worked out okay, even if he had to go to plan B. Mako had to clean exactly zero halls.

 

And they were all drawn out from their lonely rooms and here, the whole Chime. (Plus two.)

 

(Minus one.) 

 

“Orth?” whispered Mako. 

 

“Yeah?” Even Orth looked soft in the wash of orange and gold light coming from the screen. 

 

Mako nodded sleepily at the pilot chair over at the front of the bridge. At the robotic body he had been avoiding looking at all day. “When AuDy comes back online, let’s all watch this show again with them. I think they’d like it.” 

 

“They don’t like any show,” Orth snorted. “But sure.” 

 

Satisfied, Mako let himself drift off to the sound of clarinets.   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> -Title is a reference to the infamous "Just according to keikaku (keikaku means plan)" Death Note fansub
> 
> -I have never actually watched Evangelion
> 
> -I did not know that Mako thought Orth was hot until I wrote this, but there it is
> 
> -If there are mistakes in how I describe the Kingdom Come, uhhhhh please ignore
> 
> -Despite my extremely strong love of Orth/Ibex, I am only capable of writing gen longform......please know that this is Orth/Ibex in my heart, woof
> 
> -If the Hieron festival episode had taken place during S3, Ephrim would be skulking around the fairytale puppet show, Adaire would be trying to countercon all the carnies into prizes she can give Hella, and Lem would be getting mugged again
> 
> -Orth's favorite Hieron character is Alyosha because he identifies with this very tired priest


End file.
